The Oscars Were Wrong!

Last night I became a sheep, watching the Academy Awards alongside millions of other Americans (though, thanks to TIVO
I watched the ceremony after it had already begun, and fast forwarded through needless commercials and those annoying "Enchanted" songs). And sure, I understand that Hollywood wants to show solidarity for the writers, but
the clips of writers at work before the presentation of "Best Screenplay" is ridiculous. In fact, I think there were two separate occasions in the broadcast where they used this trope, and trust me they are overlooking something very important:

"Writing is boring." Even if you've just read something interesting, something compelling, seen a movie or read a book that made you cry or question the very nature of human existence, I guarantee, if you could have been there watching the great opus created, you would agree, it was not exciting to watch. 

I feel bad for someone watching a writer at work, no wonder the kids of writers often decry the practice (and the sporadic small paychecks). For ten minutes a writer will stare into space, write down a sentence, erase the sentence, write two more, change a word, start a blank page, write a sentence, erase, repeat.

Instead, the Academy wants you to believe that it is a spontaneous invention, that writing leaps
whole and magnificent, like Athena from her father's head;they want you to believe that they actually have footage of these nominated Screenwriters at work.

This is a problem with Hollywood. Too often they will put forth a film, whose main character is a "writer." Think Scarlett Johannson in the film: "In Good Company."

The problem is that she is not believable. Where is her lack of self esteem? Where are her ink-stained hands? Where's the angst? And why do we never see her work, but writing seems to 
be so damn easy for her?

There are of course the few exceptions, "Sideways" got it right, so did "Stranger than Fiction" and "Adaptation" but these are fewer and far between. 

Part of the problem is that Writers love to talk about themselves. Sure we know that we're not
interesting. Jon Stewart hit this fact on the head, when he suggested that Hollywood should 
invite the writers to the big Post-Oscar parties: "But don't worry," he assured the crowd "They 
won't mingle." Yet the best way to get over angst, is to write about it, and in this age when 
confessional poetry has turned into memoir, writers feel that they've been given carte blanche to decry their own plights as artists.

Sure, it is a lucrative profession shrouded in mystery and acidic flashbacks of High School English classes, but when I see the image put forth by the Academy Awards, my eyes instinctively roll back in my head, and this strange gagging reflex begins in my throat.

Still, the saving grace is that not all of the featured writers were ignorant of the meta-writing they were asked to simulate for the camera. My respect for the Coen Brothers (who stole the whole damn show) was magnified, when in an earlier segment one of them appeared to have fallen asleep in a chair with a book over his face, while the other sat on a couch with his head in his hands. So true, so true. Thanks guys, for accurately representing your art, and proving to the world that even for critically acclaimed, three time Academy Award winners, writing is boring.